B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 246

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Find the Innocent

English mystery writer William Edward Vickers (1889-1965) was best known under his pen name Roy Vickers, although he also wrote under the names David Durham, Sefton Kyle, and John Spencer. Biographical details are a bit sketchy, but Vickers worked as a salesman, court reporter and magazine editor in addition to penning nonfiction articles. He also found some success as a ghostwriter and as a crime reporter for a newspaper.

He found his literary stride when he published his short story, "The Rubber Trumpet," the first of over three dozen stories originally published in Pearson's Magazine and featuring the fictitious Department of Dead Ends division of Scotland Yard (a precursor to TV's Cold Case, if you will). Many of these are inverted mysteries, with the crime and perpetrators being known and the crime solved as much by luck and perseverance than brilliant detection. He also edited several anthologies for the Crime Writers' Association.

The central sleuth in Vickers' Department of Dead Ends stories started as being Superintendent Tarrant and in the later stories switched to Inspector Rason. However, Vickers also wrote eight novels in a more traditional procedural style featuring Detective-Inspector Peter Curwen. Find the Innocent was the final Curwen installment, published in 1959. He's described by one character as being "large, rotund and homely, looking like a successful local auctioneer who contemplates retirement."

Three scientists, Eddis, Stranack and Canvey, are all suspects in the murder of their employer, Mr. "WillyBee" Brengast, who had refused to grant them royalties on their inventions. The trio work and live together at WillyBee Products Ltd., yet they detest one another. Each man gives the same story to the police—each claims the same alibi, that he was the one to stay behind alone with the victim while the other two men went into town together. It's obvious to Inspector Curwen that one man must be guilty and the other two abetting, but which is which? Complicating matters are the victim's beautiful young widow whose one-night stand with one of the scientists plays a key role, and the victim's brainy niece who "helps" Inspector Curwen while falling for another of the suspects.

I've not read much of Vickers' output, but I came across one criticism that his novels paled in comparison to his stories, and I think I can understand why that might be the case. The premise of Find the Innocent is promising—three suspects who give the same story with little or no evidence to prove or disprove which one is guilty—but I think the novel (novella, actually, as it's on the short side) would have worked even better as a shorter story. 

Vickers ultimately wrote close to 70 novels under his various pseudonyms, as well as the dozens of stories published in Pearson's and in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He was inducted in Britain's famed The Detection Club in 1955. Unfortunately very few of his works are in print today. The Black Dagger Crime Series reprinted Find the Innocent in 2001, but it's hard to find a copy of the 1959 original, unless you're willing to fork over $275 or more for a first edition online.

Mystery Melange

Bestselling author Lawrence Block is offering select items for sale on eBay, including stories, the copyedited manuscript of A Drop of the Hard Stuff, complete with corrections ("and my occasionally vehement responses thereto"), the revised draft of a script for a TV movie, for which Block adapted an Edgar-winning Matthew Scudder story, and more. The auctions close May 13. 

Noir At The Bar returns to the Mandrake Bar in Culver City, California on May 20, with author Lisa Brackmann (Rock, Paper, Tiger), Eric Stone (Shanghaied), Brett Battles (No Return), Fingers Murphy (The Flaming Motel) and Mystery Dawg, the editor of Powder Burn Flash. Mysterious Galaxy will also be on hand to sell books.

It's Macavity Award nomination time again for members of Mystery Readers International, in the categories of best novel, first novel, bio/critical, short story, and the Sue Feder Memorial historical mystery. All works must have been published in 2011, and the deadline for nominations is June 1st. For more info, contact Janet Rudolph.

Australia's Monash University is holding a "Body in the Library" exhibition of mystery history, through June 8. Highlights include covers of lurid works by Sax Rohmer, Detection Club projects, detective magazines, the Dick Donovan series that was a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes, and the many Australian and New Zealand crime fiction authors and books. (Hat tip to Elizabeth Foxwell.)

Crimeculture is sponsoring a no-fee Sherlock Holmes Flash Fiction contest. Entrants have to write a 400-word story featuring Holmes in another time and place or in a different genre.  The deadline is June 15, and top ten winners will be published on the Crimeculture website.  (With thanks to Sandra Seamans.)

The latest Suspense Magazine has interviews with Nick Santora, M. William Phelps, Eric Jerome Dickey, and many more. You'll also find reviews of and news about e-books from LJ Sellers, Scott Nicholson and Vincent Zandri.


Congrats to the winners of the "Flashbang" fiction test sponsored by the 2012 Crimefest in the UK. The winners, who were tasked with writing a crime story in 150 words or less, were chosen by author Zoë Sharp.

Mystery Writers of America have added Denver to the list of upcoming MWA University writer workshops. The focus of these events is on the craft of writing, with college-level courses taught by published writers and experienced teachers. Waukesha, Wisconsin, is the next stop on June 16th, followed by Denver on August 11th. For more information, check out the MWA University info page.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Dublin author Ava McCarthy signed a deal with Hollywood production company Polaris Pictures to adapt her debut novel The Insider for film. The book centers on a female former computer hacker named Harry Martinez, who has shifted careers to become a private eye.

Ex-James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan has joined Owen Wilson to star in John Erick Dowdle's political/spy thriller The Coup. The story follows an American family who moves to Southeast Asia and gets mixed up in a violent coup where merciless rebels are attacking the city. Brosnan will play a mysterious government operative.

Oscar-nominated actor John Hawkes has signed to star in the indie thriller Too Late, about the tangled relationship between a troubled private investigator (Hawkes) and the missing woman he's hired to find. Hawkes has also joined the cast of Switch, a prequel to Jackie Brown, based on the Elmore Leonard novel.

Producer David Barron (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) optioned film rights to UK author Howard Linskey's crime novel The Damage, set in Newcastle's gangland.

Author Walter Mosley is teaming up with producer Diane Houslin to form a production company called B.O.B. Filmhouse that will help adapt Mosey's novels for the big and small screens. The company is already working on projects including The Long Fall, based on Mosley's Leonid McGill novels (for HBO). It also has plans to create a feature film based on Mosley's psychological thriller Man in My Basement.

TV

"Ducky" fans can relax. Actor David McCallum signed a two-year deal to continue in the popular CBS series NCIS.

TNT has given a fifth season order to Southland, its Los Angeles-based crime drama. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)

AMC has given the greenlight to two new scripted drama pilots, including Low Winter Sun, based on a British miniseries to be adapted for the U.S. by Chris Mundy (Criminal Minds). The show is "a contemporary story of murder, deception, revenge and corruption that starts with the murder of a cop by a fellow Detroit detective." The other project is an untitled legal thriller about on a District Attorney who uncovers new evidence prompting the reopening of a sensational murder case.

NBC may premiere its fall season in August, including shows like the supernatural police procedural Grimm, to take advantage of the Olympics ratings and ad boost.

Stockholm production group NICE Drama has snatched up rights to a trio of novels by young crime writer Kristina Ohlsson, planning on a six-episode TV series and three 90-minute films. Ohlsson was a counterterrorism officer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe before turning to writing.

Canada's ION Television network announced that the upcoming fifth season of the police drama Flashpoint will be its last. Executives added, "While the series is still at its creative apex, we've decided to end the series on a high note, and give those fans the satisfaction of a fitting series conclusion in our 75th episode."

William Shatner will star in the Season 3 premiere of the ABC drama Rookie Blue, playing a drunk driver.

THEATER

This year's Tony Award nominees include Bonnie & Clyde: the Musical (with music by frank Wildhorn and lyrics by Don Black), for best original score and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Laura Osnes).

Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 film Rebecca starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier (and based on Daphne Du Maurier's famous mystery thriller) is being turned into a Broadway musical this fall. Karen Mason, Howard McGillin and James Barbour have been cast in lead roles, with Tony Award-winning Michael Blakemore in charge of staging and Francesca Zambello as director.

Playwright Simon Stephens spoke with the London Evening Standard about his new play Three Kingdoms being staged at the Lyric Hammersmith May 3-19. The play follows an investigation by two British police officers into the European sex trade after the discovery of an Estonian prostitute's severed head in the Thames at Chiswick.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - A Moment on the Edge

Author Elizabeth George, best known for her Inspector Lynley mysteries, selected 26 crime stories by women authors for the anthology A Moment on the Edge: 100 Years of Crime Stories by Women (2002). In her introduction, George analyzes how and why people have been fascinated with crime stories since ancient times and takes to task those critics of the genre who believe crime writing is a lesser form of literary endeavor. The stories George chose certainly make a strong argument for their inclusion in any anthology of quality short fiction, whether it's crime-themed or not.

The anthology arranges the stories chronologically, starting with the classic "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell from 1917. From there, the timeline progresses to stories by Golden Age mystery writers Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh, and then "New Golden Age" authors including Sara Paretsky and Marcia Muller. There are also selctions by writers considered to lie outside the genre: Shirley jackson, Nadine Gordiner, Antonia Fraser and Joyce Carol Oates. Each selection is prefaced with a description by George that includes a brief bio of the author and a tidbit or two about the story, as with "The Man Who Knew How" by Sayers, which was adapted for radio starring Charles Laughton and Hans Conreid.

All the subgenres in crime fiction are well-represented, from the supernatural in "Death of a Snowbird" by J. A. Jance, where the spirit of a dead Native American girl appears in a retired couple's RV as they spend the winter in Arizona (1994); psychological suspense in "Afraid All the Time" by Nancy Pickard, following a woman who moves to the plains and descends into into a nightmare (1989); a police procedural featuring Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Allyn in "I Can Find My Way Out" (1946); a "whydunnit" from Margery Allingham in "Money to Burn" (1957); the noirish "New Moon and Rattlesnakes" by Wendy Hornsby (1994); and even a Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson pastiche by Gillian Linscott ("A Scandal in Winter," from 1996).

George's intention was to have the stories illustrate how crime fiction, particularly that written by women about women, has changed in the last hundred years. This is likely one reason she bookends her choices with two tales about the death of abusive husbands, written 80 years apart (the authors' lives span 100 years, but not necessarily the stories). As Elizabeth Geroge notes in her intro:  "All of these authors share in common a desire to explore mankind in a moment on the edge. The edge equates to the crime committeed. How the characters deal with the edge is the story."

Mystery Melange

The latest issue of CrimeFactory is out with an Abbott Family two-fer: Megan Abbott interviews Andrew Nette, and Patti Abbott contributes a new short story. Other features include an essay by Josh Stallings, Spi-Fi smut uncovered by James Hopwood, plus many more interviews and fiction.

The crime fiction awards keep pouring in: the Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America in various categories; and Spinetingler Magazine announced its 2012 honors, including Best New Voice, Donald Ray Pollock for his novel The Devil All the Time; Best Rising Star Anthony Neil Smith (All the Young Warriors); and Best Legend, Lawrence Block (A Drop of the Hard Stuff).

One of the latest installments in the Akashic Books "city noir" series is Long Island Noir, edited by Kaylie Jones and featuring stories by Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Weinman and over a dozen other authors. Criminal Element is offering a sweepstakes you can enter to win a free copy of the anthology.

It's the start of a new month, and that means Omnimystery News is once again providing a list of "Firsts on the First," new series characters being introduced in novels published during May.

Statuesque Success

The Detroit News reports on a campaign to create a statue in Detroit of RoboCop, the iconic character from the 1987 film starring Peter Weller as a half-man, half-robot officer. A Tweet in February 2011 sent to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing spawned an online fundraising campaign that raised $50,000 in six days. Now, a year later, Hollywood statue designer Fred Barton's life-sized RoboCop model is being scanned at a Canadian studio so it can be cast in bronze and delivered to its new home.

I wonder what other fictional book/movie/TV characters we can lobby for life-sized statues? Any favorites you'd like to see cast in bronze or stone for posterity? I guess here in D.C., it would have to be a statue of Leroy Jethro Gibbs from NCIS (played by Mark Harmon). Who would people choose for your area?

 

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

The 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall, won't be released until November, but that didn't keep Sony Pictures from announg a 24th Bond film will be heading to theaters in 2014, once again starring Daniel Craig.

Guillermo del Toro has optioned The Bloody Benders script by Adam Robitel. It's based on the true story of a family who ran something of a Bates hotel in Kansas in 1873; as many as 20 guests checked in, and never checked out, robbed and murdered by their hosts.

The star-studded cast of the movie Out of the Furnace keeps getting bigger. Willem Dafoe was just added, joining the likes of Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard, Woody Harrelson and Forest Whitaker, in the tale of two brothers who live in the Rust Belt, one who lands in prison, the other in a ruthless criminal enterprise.

Warner Bros is launching Inside the Script, a series of illustrated eBooks with the shooting scripts, production notes, storyboards, photos, posters, on-set stills and more for classic movies including Casablanca, Ben-Hur, An American In Paris and North By Northwest.

TV

The E! network, known mostly for its Hollywood gossip shows, is adding a lineup of scripted series including the Amy Devlin Mysteries, based on a graphic novel about a young "culturally-obsessed detective who brings her own style and POV to police work." Another series is titled Juror #9, about a man named Alex Dunbar who accidentally kills a woman who's been blackmailing him for a shady business deal. He frames a man who turns out to become the scion of a business empire, and "the ensuing media frenzy engulfs the police investigator, the DA and even Alex's wife as the trial becomes the national obsession."

Syfy picked up rights to the Harper Connelly Mysteries by True Blood author Charlaine Harris. The four-book series is about a young woman who develops the ability to sense the location and last memories of dead people, after she's struck by lightning. The TV series will presumably be more than four episodes.

Syfy is also developing a show called Seeing Things, based on Scott Mitchell Rosenberg's graphic novel about a police officer who is killed but forced to come back as a ghost and carry out covert missions for a government agency.

A&E announced the premiere date for The Glades, June 3 at 9 p.m. It will be followed at 10 by the series premiere of Longmire, based on Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire mystery novels and starring Robert Taylor as the sheriff of a Wyoming town.

Actor Ray Stevenson (star of films Thor and The Three Musketeers) will have a recurring role next season in Dexter, playing the leader of a Russian organized crime syndicate.

The stars of HBO's Boardwalk Empire teased season 3 at a recent Q&A in North Hollywood. The new season will pick up 15 months in the future from the end of season two and will see the rise of gangsters like Al Capone.

Trying to keep up with the pilots for potential fall TV series? Here's the latest scorecard, from Omnimystery News.

PODCASTS/RADIO

Suspense Radio returns after a two-week hiatus with authors Paul French, Donald Allen Kirch, Robert Bennett and Andrew Kaplan.

THEATER

American Psycho, the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis that was turned into a feature film starring Christian Bale, is going to be adapted again, this time for the theater—a musical for the London stage.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Moving Toyshop

Robert Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978) set out to be a professional musician and had a successful career writing vocal and choral music. He composed music for the cinema, too, close to 50 films including the scores for many British comedies of the 1950s. That comedy link isn't surprising considering Montgomery also wrote comic mystery novels under the pen name of Edmund Crispin, the first of which, The Case of the Gilded Fly, was published in 1944. Crispin didn't write many novels, but those he did featured the eccentric, absent-minded Oxford don and professor of English and Literature, Gervase Fen.

The third of these books is perhaps his best. Titled The Moving Toyshop, P.D. James named it as one of the best five mysteries of all time and critic and mystery writer H.R.F. Keating included it among the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. Keating added, "The word to describe The Moving Toyshop is 'rococo'. It possesses in splendid abundance the ebullient charm of the works of art thus labelled. It is alive with flourishes. Its mainspring the actual disappearance of a toyshop visited in midnight Oxford, has all the right fancifulness, and at the end it is explained with perfect plausibility."

The plot centers on poet Richard Cadogan, who stumbles on the dead body of an old lady in an Oxford toyshop late one night right before a blow from an unseen assailant knocks him unconscious. But when he recovers, not only has the woman disappeared, the entire toyshop has vanished, replaced by a grocery store. When the police not surprisingly refuse to believe Cadogan's story, he turns to the only person he thinks can help, his former colleague Gervase Fen. Fen's response is a typical Crisin ploy, a breaking of the fourth-wall illusion, "It's somewhat unusual business, isn't it." "So unusual," replies the poet, "that no one in his sense would invent it." (At another point, Fen dreams up book titles "for Crispin.") Fen sets about solving the impossible crime via his intuition, wits and wit, tossing in various literary references and quotations along the way, including clues based on Edward Lear limericks.

Crispin unfortunately suffered from a problem with alcoholism, and it was his drinking that eventually made into an invalid and semi-recluse, too weak to write. It's a shame, for it would have been interesting to see where his imagination and whimsical take on the genre would have led him, had he had full use of his faculties. The Fen books are witty, clever and entertaining, and filled with wonderfully eccentric characters.
FYI, the Felony & Mayhem Press reprinted several titles in the Fen series, including a new edition of The Moving Toyshop just last year, adding to an audio book from Audible in 2008.

Mystery Melange

The program for the 10th Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival was announced yesterday and inludes headliners Jo Nesbo, Harlan Coben, John Connolly, Kate Mosse, Peter Robinson, Peter James and Ian Rankin. (Hat tip to the blog It's a Crime--or a Mystery)

In the interview roundup this week, the acclaimed and prolific author Robert Randisi stopped by Petticoats and Pistols, talking about his westerns and what makes a good story;  the blog Kittling: Books talked with writing duo Joyce and Jim Lavene about their cozy mysteries and how they write as a team; Existential Ennui (love the blog title) had a Q&A with spy novelist Jeremy Duns.

Not so much a Q&A as a guest post, Les Edgerton gives tips via Kristen Lamb's blog on how to create a remarkable writing voice.

More award and award nomination congratulations to report this week:

This year's nominees for the Arthur Ellis Awards for crime fiction authors were handed out by the Crime Writers of Canada.


The Los Angeles Times Book Award winners were also announced, with Stephen King awarded the prize for in the Mystery/Thriller Category for his novel 11/22/63.


The Mystery Writers of America gave the Mary Higgins Clark Award to Sara J. Henry for her novel Learning to Swim.


CrimeFest in the UK announced shortlists for Audible Sounds of Crime Awards, given for the best abridged and unabridged crime audiobooks in both printed and audio formats; the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award for the best humorous crime novel; and the eDunnit Award for the best crime fiction ebook first published in both hardcopy and in electronic format.


Tonight is also the night of the annual Edgar Awards Banquet, where this year's award winners will be announced. For a list of the finalists, you can check the In Reference to Murder Recent Mystery Awards link . Just in case you can't wait, Dan Wager, the "Hungry Detective," lists his picks .

Boston's Big Thrill

If you're in the Boston area this Wednesday, join the Boston Public Library in a special fundraiser titled "The Big Thrill." Authors Lee Child, Charlaine Harris, Tess Gerritsen, Karin Slaughter and David Hosp will be on hand, and you can also enjoy drinks, hors d'oeuvres and a silent auction full of various prizes.

This is part of a Save the Libraries campaign spearheaded by Karin Slaughter, who is quite passionate about the subject, adding, "The funding of American libraries should be a matter of national security. Keeping libraries open, giving access to all children to all books is vital to our nation’s sovereignty. For nearly 85 percent of kids living in rural areas, the only place where they have access to technology or books outside the schoolroom is in a public library. For many urban kids, the only safe haven they have to study or do homework is the public library."

Tickets are still available for this event, and you can also bid on eBay for signed books and other goodies.